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2. A Year Of Windfall That Wasn’t For Tata Sons

A year of bonanza for Tata Sons Ltd., India’s largest conglomerate, ended like any other. That’s because most of what it received as dividend from group companies, and from a buyback and stake sale in Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. was wiped out by an impairment charge on its telecom arm Tata Teleservices Ltd.

In financial year 2018, Tata Sons reported a revenue of Rs 8,156 crore, according to ratings agency Crisil. Nearly Rs 6,700 crore of it came as dividend from TCS, BloombergQuint calculations showed.

The company also received extraordinary gains from two transactions--nearly Rs 10,278 crore by participating in the Rs 16,000-crore TCS buyback and stake sale worth Rs 8,150 crore in TCS.

In all, it got more than Rs 28,102 crore during the year.

But the company also took an impairment of nearly Rs 24,267 crore on investments in Tata Teleservices, according an Aug. 1 report of rating agency ICRA.

5. Why Torrent Pharma Is Outperforming Its Larger Indian Peers

Shares of Torrent Pharma Ltd. have risen the most among large domestic peers so far this year as its domestic business aided earnings when Indian drugmakers face pricing pressure in the U.S., the largest market for many of them.

The stock has gained over 33 percent since the start of the financial year in April, compared with a 10.6 percent rise in the S&P BSE Healthcare Index.

The recent rally was aided by its June-quarter earnings, as its revenue jumped 37 percent year-on-year. Its operating profit grew 60 percent.

The November acquisition of Unichem Laboratories Ltd. also contributed to Torrent Pharma’s domestic business. And the company expects its international segment to improve.

6. Ola Takes Its Fight With Uber To U.K.

In its second big overseas push, Ola received licences to operate in South Wales and Greater Manchester today. While the operations in South Wales will be launched within the next month, it plans nationwide expansion by the end of 2018.

Ola will be competing with its biggest rival Uber that has had a troubled run in some of the British cities after its licences were revoked.

Brighton had said in March that it would not renew Uber’s licence as the taxi firm is not, ‘fit and proper’ to use.

The two companies are already head-to-head in India and Australia.

However, the aggressive expansion might hit Ola’s balance sheet.

It is going to be expensive, as there will be more discounting to attract customers and drivers both.

7. Here’s How India Plans To Tackle The Mallyas Of The Future

The government is mulling amendments to the Passport Act to prevent economic offenders who pose a “financial risk to the country” from fleeing, according to a senior government official.

A committee headed by Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar was formed to tighten laws to prevent loan defaulters from fleeing the country.

The committee has suggested amending the Act to ensure that whenever there is financial risk to the banking sector, defaulters get asked to participate in the resolution of that loan, the official said.

The amendment will lay out “well-defined criteria based on reasonable classification of financial risk,” added the official quoted above.

The amendments will prevent an offender from leaving the country by issuing a look-out notice. It will also authorize banks to inform enforcement agencies about such offenders once they meet the criteria.

9. Changes To Anti-Graft Law Not In The Right Direction: Kaushik Basu

Former chief economic adviser, Kaushik Basu said that recent amendments to the Prevention Of Corruption Act are not in the “right mode.”

These amendments include increasing the punishment for bribe givers to up to seven years and providing a seven-day window for reporting crime, following the passage of which the bribe giver will not be charged.

My big worry is that if you give the bribe-giver a window of seven days and a disproportionate protection to the bribe-taker, then the seven-day window is not going to achieve the kind of thing that I had argued.

10. From Health To Education: The Cost Of Services Is Rising Faster Than Goods In India

A rise in so-called ‘core inflation’ in India has led to the assumption that the demand-supply gap in India is closing. But what if the inflationary pressures are emerging more from the increased cost of services than the increased cost of goods?

A services CPI index constructed by BloombergQuint consisting of health, education, personal care, recreation and amusement services shows that these components have seen a higher level of inflation than the overall index over the last four months.

Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economist at State Bank of India pointed out that services inflation has been rising since December, while goods inflation has only started to pick-up from about March.

While the higher Goods and Services Tax could be one reason, increase in incomes could also be leading to higher demand for services, say economists.